The Casanova Family: October (part 1)

The first half of October has been fun! Sports are wrapping up, school is in full swing, and the leaves are changing. The weather has been great and we have been getting outside as much as we can.

The month started off with a big baseball tournament called "The Monster Bash." The first two games were on Saturday afternoon. The teams were encouraged to decorate their dugouts and their uniforms or faces.

Luckily they didn't play like Zombies! But they did win best decorated dugout.

They won both games on Saturday! Owen walked a few times and scored twice.

The tournament part was on Sunday with the first game being at noon. Owen had a big double in the first game and we won. In the second game, we trailed by 11 runs going into the bottom of the last inning AND WE CAME BACK AND TIED IT!!! Virtually every kid had a big hit or was walked. Owen doubled and ended up being the tying run. Talk about exciting! That put us in the championship game, where we played ok, but lost. You could tell the boys were spent after the emotional high of the previous game. They finished in 2nd Place!

The days were really nice, but it got COLD when the sun set.

We were all very proud of how well the team played. Pretty cool team trophy too!

WAY TO GO BOMBERS!!!

One reason we played so well in the tournament is because we played "up" all season. However, for fall ball, we played "up" by two grades on accident! Apparently, there weren't enough teams so they combined 5th and 6th grade, which meant half the teams we played were 6th graders! This is Dylan vs. a very tall 6th grader. Crazy!

Millie celebrated her 6th Birthday!

The kids were really into it, and Elsie baked her this carrot/peanut butter cake. :)

Millie loves Halloween decorations...

Imagine this at night. Kind of dangerous... :)

The weekend of October 10th was a family sporting extravaganza! Owen had a baseball game and two flag football games. Elsie had a softball tournament. And Grandma Cas came up and got to see all of it! The games started on Saturday morning with the last baseball game of the season.

Flag football game right after lunch. They won and Owen scored two touchdowns!

Next were three softball games to finish up the evening. We were literally at the ballparks from 10AM to 10PM.

Elsie had great hit and scored a couple of runs!

The Bolts won the first game, then lost the next two. They played at 8AM the following morning and lost. Owen played football at 9AM (sorry no pics) and scored two touchdowns and caught the winning score in overtime!

After all the sports, it is nice to get out and go for a bike ride...especially in the fall!

I took off work last week and went riding a few times. This is Lexington Lake Park in DeSoto. It was my first time riding it and it was pretty fun!

The ledge on this bluff was a lot more scary that the picture.

Wednesday, I went out to Lawrence and rode the KS River Trail. SO FUN!

I pretty much had the entire park to myself. Saw two people the whole 9mi ride.

The kids had a break from school on Thurs-Fri, so we went to Boonville for our annual pumpkin patch and bonfire visit. Grandma Cas has saved up all the leaves in trash bags for the kids to play in. 5min after we got there they went to work! Sarah was getting over being sick so she stayed in Olathe, but we missed her for sure.

I cleaned up my old bike (not sure if I've ever washed it) and took it for a ride on the trail. Compared to my mountain bike it feels SO small.

We had a great bonfire on Friday night with lots of friends and family. Sorry no pics, but here are the kids playing washers beforehand. :)

We've been busy with Scouts too. On Sunday we braved the 40 degree temps to learn how to build a fire and cook different things using outdoor cooking. We roasted weenies and made s'mores on the fire, used a dutch oven to make cobbler, and cooked chili on a camp stove. It was fun!